The past few days, I’ve been mom-ing hard. I don’t know if that’s a real verb, but it is to me. In these days/weeks/months, when it is oh so difficult, we must have some truth to hold on to, some deep rooted strength that keeps us going and moving forward. Something more powerful than the simple will to keep these children alive, right?

A few years ago I read the book Mission for Motherhood by Sally Clarkson, and it revolutionized my parenting. One thing that impacted me most was creating a vision for my family.

We all hear how we need to get a vision for our life or a vision for our dreams and goals. But the idea of getting a vision for my family had never occurred to me at the time. I mean, I want my kids to grow into adulthood. I want to survive raising them. I want to grow old with my husband. But that sounds cliche and vague when you are actively trying to raise children and survive just the day alone until you throw your body into bed at night barely conscious enough to say goodnight to the husband before your eyes slam shut. Something bigger must sustain us.

Imagine This

When I read Mission for Motherhood, Clarkson wrote about an image she has of her family that pushes her every day to to move her forward even on those hard parenting days.

I have a pretty vibrant imagination. I see things in pictures or movie-like motion images. (Apparently, this isn’t how everyone’s brain works, or so my husband says. Maybe it’s the storyteller in me.)

So I created a mental picture or vision, if you will, for what I want my family to look like when all four of my children are grown. I envision us all on the beach, maybe taking a vacation together, maybe they brought their spouses and children, and we are all walking barefoot through the sand, the lacy surf of the ocean dancing over our feet. The boys are kicking sand at their sister. Her hair is blowing around her face. We’re all laughing. Together.

That exact moment may never happen. But the point is, this is the goal.

“Imagination is a preview of life’s coming attractions.” ~Mark Twain

Too many times, we become too afraid of the future. We don’t want to imagine our precious little baby growing up, dating or moving away. We don’t want to imagine our loose-tooth six-year-old graduating high school.

But it’s going to happen, parents. They will grow up. They will have their heart broken. They will face disappointments. They will have to learn from failures. And it’s up to us to guide them through it all.

If we coast through parenting without a vision for our family’s future, then we’ll miss the opportunities to seed our children with the leadership it takes to be the adults we want them to be.

But seeing it in your mind isn’t enough.

“Write this.
    Write what you see.
Write it out in big block letters
    so that it can be read on the run.”

~Habakkuk 2:2, The Message Bible

Last year I was in a leadership group, and one assignment was to write a mission statement for each area of our lives. Again, businesses write mission statements for their company. Self-help books tell you to write mission statements for your life. But a mission statement for my children? But then I thought about this image I had of my kids in the future, and the mission statement was easy to write down on paper.

The important part of a mission statement is to make it short enough that you can repeat it easily by memory, but potent enough that it clarifies exactly what your purpose is in parenting.

This is what I wrote:

To raise godly adults with whom I want to be friends. To be a mother they choose to call friend as well.

That is my goal in mothering. If they grow to be adults I would want to befriend, then I’ve done my job well. And if our relationship is strong enough that they also want to be friends with me in return, then I have become the Proverbs 31 mother whose children “rise up and call her blessed.”

I want to encourage you to take some time today, wherever you can find it, to just imagine what you want to see your family become in the future. When that vision is clear to you, write it down into a one or two sentence mission statement.

Next week I’ll talk about practical ways to work toward that mission statement, so have it ready! And I’ll give you some of the questions I ask myself on a regular basis to make sure I’m running toward that vision for my family.

You won’t want to miss Part 2 of Getting a Vision for Your Family. Subscribe HERE to get a reminder directly in your inbox when the blog is posted so that you don’t miss it!

 

 

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